BERKELEYSIDE: Media outlets around the country have been proclaiming that Berkeley is living up to its Berzekeley reputation by deciding to give out free marijuana to the city’s poor. “Berkeley out-Berkeleys Berkeley” declared one, and another talked of the arrival of “weed welfare.”

Many of the articles were long on hyperbole and short of the facts, however, since the a new law may not force dispensaries to radically alter their business models. Many of them already give away free medical cannabis.

A law passed unanimously by the Berkeley City Council earlier this month states that Berkeley’s medical marijuana dispensaries must provide two percent of their cannabis free of charge to very low-income residents.

Individual patients who make under $32,000 or families that earn less than $46,000 qualify for the complimentary cannabis. The law further requires that the free marijuana “be the same quality on average as Medical Cannabis that is dispensed to other members.”

“We were happy with that,” said Charley Pappas, a member of the City’s Medical Cannabis Commission. “It gets the Council and the mayor focusing on patients. There should be access to the best medicine and the poorest people shouldn’t be excluded.”

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